Q&A for Teens: People Connection

With a few precious minutes, you can change a kid’s life.

There’s a kid who lives across the street from me, and he seems kind of sad and lonely. But he’s much younger than I am, and I’m just not sure if there’s anything I can do for him, even though I want to. Any advice?

Lauren Roth's Answer

I made an absolutely awesome, healthful, incredibly delicious, and intensely beautiful dinner tonight.

There was a wooden bowl filled with dark green fresh raw spinach leaves, a blue bowl of deep purple-colored cabbage with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, which made the dark purple cabbage exude a lavender/dusty-pink colored juice, a plate of heirloom baby tomatoes which were orange and light red and bright red and light yellow and spring green, in interesting shapes, like pear-shaped and round and watermelon-shaped…tan chick peas in that awesome chick-pea shape (!), bright green broccoli and bright white cauliflower garnished with bright green parsley, orange steamed carrots with yellow and green steamed baby patty squashes, and golden, crispy baked schnitzel. For dessert, we had steaming mugs of light green, slightly sweetened mint tea. Yummmm. Oh, and on the table were pink and green and white hydrangeas floating in a glass bowl of clear water. Niiiice.

Why am I telling you this? (No, it’s not because you accidentally clicked onto Bon Apetit.com instead of Aish.com.)

I am telling you this because I really love all of you, my readers, out there, even though I don’t know you personally. I wish I could invite all of you over to my house for dinner. But I can’t, so at least I can give you the gift of sharing dinner with us in your imagination.

Erich Fromm, eminent psychologist and philosopher, explains in The Art of Loving that the deepest need of humans is to connect with other people. If I made an amazing dinner and only I ate it, I would enjoy it, but a deep psychological/spiritual/emotional need is filled when I share my dinner/description of the amazing dinner I prepared…my painting/my cancer research/my sonata/my novel/my friendship/a beautiful vista…etc… with another human. If you connect with your young neighbor, that connection can fill a deep need in him.

The fact that the neighbor in question is young and you are older reminds me of Don Pelts. Don Pelts was just about the nicest man I have ever had the pleasure to know. He was my parents’ good friend, and he died last week.

Two things strike me about Don, and I’m going to use both of them to answer your question. One: even when I was seven years old, he spoke to me like I was another adult. His daughter was my age, and he would listen to our ideas, praise our ideas, tell us jokes, involve us in the adult conversation, ask about our school and our teachers and our friends—and really pay attention to our answers. He made us feel like real people. Like people who mattered. Long before I was old enough to read How to Win Friends and Influence People in order to know how to connect with others, I was learning how to sincerely engage other people from Don Pelts.

To this day, because of how great it made me feel when he interacted with me and his daughter as if we mattered, I greet all the children on our block and engage them when I walk past them. He taught me that even little people immensely enjoy being treated like people.

The other salient point about Don is this, and this point also speaks to your query: he was the owner and CEO of the wildly successful Corky’s Barbeque. And his passing gave me pause to think: what will I have given the world when my time comes?

You have a tremendous opportunity to take a few moments of your life to change a kid’s life.

Every moment, we have a choice: what will I give the world this moment? You have a tremendous opportunity to take a few moments of your life to change a kid’s life. You have a tremendous gift that you can give this kid. Why not give it, Don Pelts-style? That is, by making that kid feel like he matters?

When I heard the news about Don’s passing, I immediately picked up the phone and called my Aunt Joan and Uncle Phillip and my Aunt Diane and Uncle Larry and my Aunt Doris and Uncle Butch (those are not my real uncles and aunts, but in the South we give close friends relational appellations), to thank them; those were the other people in my life who taught me how to make children feel important and respected—by giving me respect and loving attention when I was a kid.

I cannot tell you how much these older individuals shaped my life and my behaviors because they treated me like I was a real person. It’s almost like God put your neighbor right across the street from you to give you this opportunity to change his life for the better.

You don’t have to be an adult to make kids feel great. The best support and succor and source of strength for a child is often a doting older sibling, a caring older cousin, or a kind older neighbor. You can be a kid and still make kids feel great about themselves, like Don Pelts and my “aunts and uncles” did for me. You don’t have to be an adult to do it. We leave our legacies moment by moment, by connecting meaningfully with other people, no matter what our age.

So wave and smile at your neighbor across the street. Tell him you like his basketball shot. Tell another neighbor you like her jump rope pizzazz. Read a book to your younger sibling. Tell them you like their style. Go hug your mother. Go sit with your father. Take a bike ride together. Have a Shabbos meal together. Learn something together. Bring your young neighbor a pizza to share together.

Use your moments well, to connect meaningfully with other people. You can make a difference to a child simply by connecting with him. “Oh, very young, what will you leave us this time? You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while.”

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About the Author

Lauren Roth, MSW, LSW, is a graduate of Princeton University, a Marriage and Parenting Therapist in private practice in Lakewood, New Jersey, and an inspirational speaker across North America and on the high seas. She is the weekly "Dear Dr. Lauren" columnist for Ami Magazine. Mrs. Roth and her husband, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth, are the parents of six children.

Visitor Comments: 3

(3)
Yael,
May 31, 2013 2:40 PM

Spot on, Lauren!

I am an adult who makes the effort to say hi to all the young kids on my block and beyond. I compliment their clothes, haircuts, bikes, smiles... I say good Shabbos to them and look at them, not only their parents. They love it and even call out to me before I have the chance to say hi. Even the shy ones eventually get into it. How did I come to do this? I was a sensitive child and it bothered me to be invisible. I won't go into details, but as Lauren learned from Don Pelts, people need to be noticed personally, individually. I do it for others and lo and behold! it makes MY life happy, too!

(2)
Jolie Greiff,
May 31, 2013 12:24 AM

Final quote

Wasn't that last quote from a Cat Stevens song? Even though he goes by some Muslim name these days, I still love his music, and his words.

(1)
shira,
May 26, 2013 9:48 PM

amazing

That is a special mixture of compassion and responsibility. To hone in and not pass that by. You never know the positive ripple effects you can create by just showing your neighbor you care. B'hatzlacha

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I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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